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electronica with emotion

Monthly Archives: September 2010

25 days ago , on the 3rd september 2010 , after 23 years of smoking , I finally decided enough was enough and I quit.

I didnt use any patches , gum , e-cigarettes , or anything NRT related. I just quit …………cold turkey , but for some reason , its been ridiculously easy this time , even though I’d had about 10 failed attempts before and couldnt go a few hours without one. The thing that made all the difference was what I was focusing on.

In the past , i’d immediately felt deprived , as if something had been taken from me against my will , but this time i have focused purely on the benefits I was reaping with each hour , each day , each week.

Every time i’ve had a craving , i’ve told myself ” This will only last 3 to 5 minutes and then it’ll be gone. When it comes back , it wont have any new ideas or strategy to trick me. It will just be the same thing. A one trick pony “. Instead I thought of getting my energy back , being able to smell food ………trees …….my house burning down , and be able to taste food , cycle longer and harder , get my white teeth back , have more money to save for holidays etc……. , but probably the biggest plus of all……………

…………..just knowing I had the tenacity to beat it and say , I conquered you.

You know you’ll have to quit sometime , and if I can do it , anyone can. I dont want to be one of those annoying militant ex-smokers that i also couldn’t stand. All I’ll say is this………..bookmark this site

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I’ve been listening to electronic music longer than I’ve been making it. I reckon somewhere in the region of 20 to 25 years. I thought I’d heard everything , and , as much as I deeply love electronic music and the imagination and creativity involved , sometimes it sounds tired.

Throughout this 20 / 25 year span , I’ve heard a lot of great artists , but I’ve also heard a lot of meh artists who made me think ” why did you bother ? ” , and then there are the artists who are truly in a class of their own , who I would consider ” groundbreaking “. Those I would consider groundbreaking would be Aphex Twin , Juan Atkins , Boards of Canada , Leftfield , Squarepusher , Luke Vibert , Orbital etc……

To this list , which i’ve kept short , I’d like to add an act that recently has completely blown me away as both an artist and as a musician.

FUNCKARMA.

Never have I heard beats so solid and so satisfying , mixed with an amazing randomness that keeps you on your toes constantly, nver knowing whats coming next. I’m full of admiration of their mixcraft , and of how , sonically , they have descended upon my musical ideas with the force of a category 5 hurricane. Truly epic and explosive are terms I use rarely , but do apply in these circumstances.

Its also truly been a long time since I listened to a piece of electronic music and thought ” these guys can really teach me a lot !! ” . When I heard Funckarma , I felt like a student again. I feel the same way as when i first heard Detroit techno , and more specifically , Juan Atkins and Derrick May , almost 25 years ago.

I’ve been experimenting with dub and ennio morricone-esque kinda sound , and i’ve always been heading towards a similar territory to that of Leftfield , and I guess Funckarma have filled in a few more blanks. No artist can ever be considered completely and totally original , and we all owe our musical birth , characteristics , DNA , mannerisms etc…. to someone else , and we take a bit of this , a bit of that , and gradually a picture emerges that we try to hammer and shape into something that can be considered a unique mix . Funckarma have changed my music forever. I cant say how exactly , but I just know they have , and I feel so excited again. The key word , is IMPACT.

As a way of saying thanks to them , I’m happy to help them promote what they do

Yes , I have a track on it , but even if I didnt , I’d still want to help promote this because i’ve heard it in its entirety , and its an incredible piece of music , and for a free release its been mastered to a very high quality finish.

Bio: The music of 2ndMOUSE is about the fusing together of emotion and technology, and its heart lies in the roots of Detroit techno and Kraftwerk. It’s a deliberate attempt to bring together the polar opposites of soul and microchip in a symbiotic way to make poignant and evocative journeys into territories most dance music won’t go.

Zeropage

Remix Credits: Zeropage

Website:www.zeropage-media.comBuy:http://www.jamendo.com/en/artist/zeropageBio: Zeropage are the two producers Stefan Fuhrer and Frédéric Arneberg from Bern, Switzerland. They have a chilled yet bright and melodic sound incorporating both instrumental and classic electronic elements. The duo started in the early 80’s, sold a few thousand CDs in the 90’s, did music for film, dance and jazz in 2000. Nowadays, they meet several times a month to experiment with sounds. With their long time experience in creating electronic music, their “jam sessions” often end in fully produced songs.

Autorotation

Remix Credits: music, vocals and lyrics by Autorotation

Website: http://www.autorotation.orgBuy: http://autorotation.org/cmsms/index.php?page=e-is-eBio: London based Autorotation blur the lines between several genres of music from electronica to shoegaze while avoiding being pigeonholed into any one category. Since forming, the group has released three albums and several singles on TeknoStan Records, Comfortstand Recordings, Periphery Records and TMBase. Autorotation performed live in the UK, Canada and Europe, sharing the stage with acts such as Styrofoam, Solvent, Rechenzentrum and Schneider TM.

emorej

Remix Credits: emorej

Website: http://www.facebook.com/emorej

Download: http://emorej.bandcamp.com/

Bio: Emorej makes a variety of electronic music. He is influenced by a lot of styles. Although the music cuts across the different genres, one key element in most of emorej’s sound is the melody.

Bio: Gert De Meester (born may 17 1977), who is also known as the former bass player of the world-fusion-funk combo The Seven Laws of Woo and knob twiddler of The Mental Attack, 2?? and Distant Fires Burning, lives in Mechelen, Belgium. In 2007 Gert started to experiment more with ambient. He was asked to make the soundtrack of a commercial for the brand “Kinto”. At the same time he began to make an ambient album, because the genre drew his attention more. He renamed himself “Distant Fires Burning” just to state the difference with the more beat-oriented work by “The Mental Attack”. In 2008 he self-released the CD “Messierobjekten” as “Distant Fires Burning”. In 2009 he released the CDR “7 Sisters” and on April 14 2010, U-Cover Records releases the third album by Distant Fires Burning, “Build on Me”, on it’s sub label U-Cover CDR Limited.

Bio: eyes cast down began his ambient/atmospheric musical explorations in 2005. Using guitars, synths, percussion, singing bowls, voices, samples & loops, he seeks to create personal and contemplative musical spaces. He also has a trio project, Keshava-Lila. The first solo and trio albums are both nearing completion.

Bio: Absorb Fish is an American electronic artist from Boston, MA. His sound could be described by ambient experimental electronics but often fusing various genres such as industrial, hip hop, broken beats, and downtempo. Over the years, he has contributed music to 3bass Records, Project 168, Artificial Bliss Recordings, and SKP Recordings. His most recent release “Frenetic”, a dark electro fused EP, was released January 2010 on SKP Recordings.

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New track up called ” EL Torino “. Again , because I have such a huge backlog ( read conveyor belt ) of tracks that are at various stages of completion , this is an old track thats laid around for a long time. In a folder , that i’ve named ” Work Pool ” , I have a number system………..1 , is a single pattern……2 , is quarter-finished………3 , is half finished……….4 , is finished but the mix and production need looked at , and 5 , is complete and is for tracks i’m completely happy with. There are hundreds ; to the point that I can work on about 100 tracks at any given time , and I work on them until the inspiration dries up in that particular session , and then it could be a week , a month or a year until I pick up the baton again.

” EL Torino ” is one such track , and was half-finished for a long time , possibly 8 years or more , but i’ve learned after 10 years at least of doing this , that inspiration is full of surprises. If Inspiration was personified , I’d envisage it as a lady , who sometimes won’t talk to you and is dry , while at other times is playful , teasing and flirtatious. Inspiration is always exciting and spontaneous. Its a spark…..a catalyst that ignites the imagination.

What I was trying to convey with ” EL Torino ” was a vision of a deserted mexican ghost town , where the bell on the little church was ringing because of the wind that carved up the dust-devils and blew the dust and the tumbleweeds in the near distance. Then , add to that , the haunting sound of those desert guitars and the old lady dressed in black , with her impossibly lined face , watching you as you slowly walk through her little town . I basically trawled through years of memories , most from my childhood , hearing the sounds in the old spaghetti westerns , and the feelings associated with those sounds , trying to evoke a track that contained it all.

Until today , it was actually called ” Differential 2 ” , because I’ll often call my tracks the first thing that comes into my head , simply to get them saved before the PC crashes. It was renamed ” EL Torino ” just today , 5 minutes before I uploaded it . It was almost called EL Paso till i remembered it was the name of a mexican food supplier , so I knew EL had to be part of the name because it was mexican and that was what I’d envisaged from the outset.

The little melodic synth riff was actually centre-stage when the track started its final , but when the bassline , which exudes a certain mexican flavour , and then the guitars , worked their way into the track note by note , it started to take more and more of a back seat , but even before that , there were 2 or 3 entirely different melodies which i completely scrapped , because , again , i’ve learned that ” ya can’t polish a turd ” , and if the idea makes me think ” meh………” , I scrap it immediately rather than working and working at it and trying to drag something sublime out of something that just isn’t there. Its important for me to feel something from what I’m making , otherwise there’s no point.